Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Bible is an invitation into the struggle itself—you are supposed to be bothered by some of the texts. Human beings come to consciousness by struggle, and most especially struggle with God and sacred texts. We largely remain unconscious if we avoid all conflicts, dilemmas, paradoxes, inconsistencies, or contradictions. Some people reject religion altogether because they are so unable to come to terms with the Bible and the ideas of Christianity. But we are supposed to be bothered by the Bible. The life of faith is a struggle to reconcile ourselves with the paradoxes and problems we find there. What do we find in ourselves that we know is deeply true that is in conflict with the Bible? What does the Bible tell us that challenges us to go deeper into ourselves? The truth is found neither by accepting all the religious ideas we are presented with nor by rejecting them.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Acting in gentleness shifts you out of the struggle to find God. Gentleness is necessary for the deepening of centering prayer. Your actions become more and more subtle in centering prayer as contemplation awakens in you. Actually, the sense that you have to achieve something, find some deeper depth, or go somewhere to discover God, other than where you are now, is an illusion. Let contemplation come effortlessly to you, as a continual gift out of the gifting nature of God. Contemplation is effortless in the same way that the falling of snow is effortless. It is effortless in the same way a light breeze blowing on your neck is effortless. It is effortless in the same way that the petals of a flower open into the sunlight. In receptive effortlessness, there is nowhere to go, nothing to deepen, not even any need to be gentle. The depth of contemplation is just being, effortlessly, in God.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

I can no longer see the ultimate meaning of a man’s life in terms of either “being a poet” or “being contemplative” or even in a certain sense “being a saint,” (although that is the only thing to be). It must be something much more immediate than that. I – and every other person in the world– must say “I have my own special peculiar destiny which no one else has had or ever will have. There exists for me a particular goal, a fulfillment which must be all my own – nobody else’s– and it does not really identify that destiny to put it under some category – “poet,” “monk,” “hermit.” Because my own individual destiny is a meeting, an encounter with God that He has destined for me alone. His glory in me will be to receive from me something which He can never receive from anyone else.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. . . And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? . . . All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

From a letter from Lou Andreas-Salomé to Rainer Maria Rilke in Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters, New York: Norton, 2006, pp. 58-59.

That one “most real thing” which in your recent letter you said you wished you could cling to when inner fears drive everything away from you and seem to leave you abandoned to an alien world, — you already have it inside you, that one real thing, planted in there like a hidden seed and thus not yet present to you. You possess it now in this sense: you have become like a little plot of earth into which all that falls — and be it even things mangled and broken, things thrown away in disgust — must enter an alchemy and become food to nourish the buried seed. No matter if at first it looks like a pile of sweepings thrown out over the soul: it all turns to loam, becomes you.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, `I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

One of our expectations was that the spiritual path would get us healthy psychologically. I was trained as a psychologist. I was in analysis for many years. I taught Freudian theory. I was a therapist. I took psychedelic drugs for six years intensively. I have a guru. I have meditated since 1970 regularly. I have taught Yoga and studied Sufism, plus many kinds of Buddhism. In all that time I have not gotten rid of one neurosis--not one. The only thing that has changed is that, whereas previously my neuroses were huge monsters, now they are like these little shmoos. “Oh, sexual perversity, I haven’t seen you in days, come and have some tea.” To me the product of the spiritual path is that I now have another contextual framework that makes me much less identified with my known neurosis, and with my own desires. If I do not get what I want, that is as interesting as when I get it. When you begin to recognize that suffering is grace, you cannot believe it. You think you are cheating.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

How do we find what is supposedly already there? How do we awaken our deepest and most profound selves? By praying and meditating? By more silence, solitude, and sacraments? Yes to all of the above, but the most important way is to live and fully accept our reality. This solution sounds so simple and innocuous that most of us fabricate all kinds of religious trappings to avoid taking up our own inglorious, mundane, and ever-present cross.

Living and accepting our own reality will not feel very spiritual. It will feel like we are on the edges rather than dealing with the essence. Thus most run toward more esoteric and dramatic postures instead of bearing the mystery of God’s suffering and joy inside themselves. But the edges of our lives—fully experienced, suffered, and enjoyed—lead us back to the center and the essence.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Thomas Keating and Contemplative Outreach, Intentions for the Coming Year

Led by Thomas Keating, we have set forth intentions for the coming year. These are the measures that we aspire to and will return to . . .

• To heed the call to be transformed and then to rely on God to enable us to pass on the mercy, forgiveness, compassion and love to all humanity that we have received. • To create a context in which the transformation of humanity can take place. • To make the practice of Centering Prayer and the conceptual background readily available. • To see Christ as present in everything and everyone. • To acknowledge that any good accomplished is the work of the Holy Spirit.